Organizing devices for mounting to vertical surfaces such as walls, doors or other vertical structures are known. Such wall or door organizing devices are solid, one piece units in the form of coated steel wire structures having a frame which is mounted to a vertical surface with suction cups. The single piece units are costly to transport, difficult to handle and require excessive storage and retail space.
Attempts have been made to produce "knocked down" or collapsible versions of over-the-door organizers. Generally, coated steel wire shelves are supported by vertical, metal tubing frame members which have holes drilled or punched through their sides. The holes permit ends of the steel wire to be inserted through the tubing, after which the ends are capped with formed metal nuts. Such joints are cheap and easy to manufacture, but are unstable no matter how tight the nuts are fastened and the resulting assembly has poor structural integrity.
Collapsible, metal wire containers for making storage racks are known. For example, Beretta Patent No. 4,015,743 describes a basket which is purported to be foldable into stacks. However, such containers are not suitable for wall mounting.
There is a need in the art for a wall or door mounted utility basket which is collapsible for cost-effective shipping, storage and display, and which has structural elements which contribute to a locking mechanism for ease in assembly and for providing rigid support once assembled.